Mary, Mary (13 page)
I SPENT THE NEXT DAY
at the FBI field office, worked from seven until seven, but maybe there was a light at the end of this particular long, dark, and creepy tunnel. Jamilla was coming to L.A., and I’d looked forward to her visit all day.
Jam insisted I not bother picking her up at the airport, and we made plans to meet at Bliss on La Cienega. When I got to the restaurant, she was standing at the bar with an overnight bag at her feet. She had on jeans, a black turtleneck, and black boots with pointy toes and steel tips. I slipped up behind her and kissed her neck. Hard to resist.
“Hey, you,” I said. “You smell good. You look even better.” Which Jamilla definitely did.
She twisted around to face me. “Hi, Alex. You made it.”
“Was there ever a doubt?”
“Well, um, yeah,” she said. “Remember the last time I was in L.A.?”
We were both hungry, so we got a table and ordered appetizers immediately—a dozen clams on the shell and an heirloom-tomato salad to share. Jamilla eats like an athlete at a training table, and I kind of like that.
“What’s new on the murder case?” she asked after we’d polished off the tomatoes and clams. “Is it true she’s been sending e-mails since the first murder?”
I blinked at her in surprise. The
L.A. Times
had been purposely vague about when the e-mails had begun. “Where’d you hear that?
What
did you hear?”
“Word gets around, Alex. One of those B-level security things the public doesn’t necessarily know about, but everyone else does. It got up to San Francisco.”
“What else have you heard? B-level stuff,” I said.
“I hear this lead detective Jeanne Galletta’s a hot ticket. Work-wise, I mean.”
“She’s no Jamilla Hughes, but yeah, she’s pretty good at her job.”
Jamilla shrugged off the compliment. She had my number all right. She looked pretty in the candlelight, to my eyes anyway. Now
this
was a good idea: dinner with Jam at a fine restaurant, my cell phone turned off.
We chose a bottle of Pinot Noir from Oregon, a favorite of hers, and I lifted my glass once it was poured. “Things have been complicated lately, Jam. I appreciate your being there for me. And here for me, too.”
Jamilla took a sip of wine; then she put a hand on my wrist. “Alex, there’s something I need to say. It’s kind of important. Just listen. Okay?”
I stared across the table into her eyes and didn’t know if I liked what I saw. My stomach was starting to drop. “Sure,” I said.
“Let me ask you this,” she said, her eyes drifting away from mine. “In your mind, how exclusive are we?”
Ouch. There it was.
“Well, I haven’t been with anyone since we’ve been seeing each other,” I said. “That’s just me, though, Jamilla. You meet someone? I guess you have.”
She let out a breath, then nodded. That’s the way she was, straight up and truthful. I appreciated it. Mostly.
“Are you seeing him?” I asked. My body was starting to tense all over. In the beginning of our relationship, I had expected something like this, but not now. Maybe I’d just gotten complacent. Or too trusting. That was a recurring problem I had.
Jamilla winced a little, thinking about her answer. “I guess that I am, Alex.”
“How’d you meet him?” I asked, then stopped myself. “Wait, Jam. You don’t have to answer that.”
She seemed to want to though. “Johnny’s a lawyer.
Prosecution,
of course. I met him on one of my cases. Alex, I’ve only seen him twice. Socially, that is.”
I stopped myself from asking more questions, even though I wanted to. I didn’t have a right, did I? If anything, I’d brought this on myself. Why had I done it, though? Why wasn’t I able to commit? Because of what happened to Maria? Or Christine? Or maybe to my own parents, who had broken up in their twenties and never even seen each other again?
Jamilla leaned across the table and spoke softly, keeping this confidential, just between us. “I’m sorry. I can tell I’ve hurt you, and I didn’t want that. We can finish dinner and talk about this if you want. Or you can go. Or I can go. Whatever you want, Alex.”
When I didn’t answer right away, she asked, “Are you mad at me?”
“No,” I answered a little too fast. “I’m surprised, I guess. Maybe disappointed, too. I’m not quite sure what I am. Just to get it straight—are you telling me you want to see other people, or was it your intention to break things off tonight?”
Jamilla took another sip of her wine. “I wanted to ask you how you felt about it.”
“Right now? Honestly, Jam? I don’t think I can continue like we’ve been. I’m not even sure of my reasons. I’ve always been pretty much—one person at a time. You know me.”
“We never made any promises to each other,” she said. “I’m just trying to be honest.”
“I know you are. I appreciate it, I really do. Listen, Jamilla, I think I need to go.” I kissed her on the cheek, and then I left. I wanted to be honest, too. With Jamilla and with myself.
I LEFT IT ALL BEHIND
, everything, and flew up to Seattle for the weekend.
As I drove from the airport toward the Wallingford neighborhood where Christine and Alex lived, I grappled with the idea of seeing her now. What other choice did I have?
I brought no presents, no bribes, just as she had done when Alex lived with me in Washington. Christine was letting me see Alex, and there was no way I could resist. I wanted to be with him for a while—I needed it.
The house was on Sunnyside Avenue North, and I knew the way by now. Christine and Ali were sitting on the porch steps when I got there. He ran down the walk to meet me like a little tornado, and I scooped him up. There was always a fear of finding a different boy than the one I last saw. All that dissolved the second I had him in my arms.
“Man, you’re getting heavy; you’re getting so big.
Ali.”
“I gotta new book,” he told me, grinning. “A hungry caterpillar that eats anything. It pops up. Then it
eats
you!”
“You can bring your book with you today. We’ll read.” I gave him another squeeze and saw Christine watching from a distance, arms folded. Finally, she smiled and raised one hand in a wave.
“Want some coffee?” she called. “Need some before you two take off?”
I squinted at her, a silent question in the still, fragrant air.
“It’s okay with me,” she said. “C’mon. I won’t bite.” Her tone was bright, probably for my sake as well as Ali’s.
“Come on, Daddy.” He climbed out of my arms, took my hand. “I’ll show you the way.”
So I followed them inside. Was this a good idea? I’d never actually been inside before. The house was tastefully cluttered. Several Arts and Crafts-style built-ins overflowed with books and some of Christine’s art collection. It was more informal and comfortable-looking than her home outside D.C. had been.
I was struck by how naturally both of them moved through this space that was so foreign to me.
I don’t belong here
.
The kitchen was open, very bright, and smelled of rosemary. A small herb garden thrived on the windowsill.
Christine set Alex up with a sippy cup of chocolate milk and then put two mugs of steaming coffee on the table between us.
“Seattle’s drug of choice,” she said. “I drink way too much of it. I should switch to decaf in the afternoons or something. Maybe in the mornings,” she added with a laugh.
“It’s good. The coffee. Your house looks great, too.”
The chitchattiness was striking in its banality, and almost as uncomfortable as a real conversation might have been right now. I vowed not to ask Christine about the weather, but this was weird for both of us.
Little Alex slipped off his chair and came back with his new book. He climbed onto my lap.
“Read. Okay? Careful, it pops up and eats you!”
It made for a good distraction and also put the focus on him, where it was supposed to be. I opened the cover and began.
“‘In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf.’”
Alex put his head against my chest, and as I felt my voice reverberate into him, my heart melted a little. Christine watched while I read. She smiled, clutching her mug with both hands.
What might have been
.
A couple of minutes later, Alex had to go to the bathroom, and he asked me to go with him. “Please, Daddy.”
Christine came over and whispered near my ear. “He’s having trouble hitting the toilet bowl with his pee. He’s a little embarrassed about it.”
“Oh,” I said. “Froot Loops. You have any?”
Fortunately, Christine had a box, and I took it into the bathroom with Alex.
I threw a couple into the bowl. “Here’s a cool game,” I said. “You have to put your pee right in the middle of a Fruit Loop.”
He tried, and he did pretty good—hit the bowl anyway.
I told Christine the trick when we came out, and she smiled and shook her head. “Fruit Loops. It’s a guy thing, right?”
THE REST OF MY DAY
in Seattle was less stressful and a lot more fun. I took Little Alex to the aquarium, and it was easy, and gratifying, to throw myself into the time I had with him. He stared wide-eyed at the tropical fish and made a mess of his chicken fingers and ketchup at lunch afterward. For all I cared, we could have spent the day in a bus terminal waiting room.
I loved watching him be himself, and also grow up. Every year it got better.
Ali. Like the great one
.
My mind didn’t get too weighed down again until we were back at the house that night. Christine and I talked for a while on the front porch. I didn’t want to go inside, but I didn’t want to leave yet. And if I wasn’t imagining it, her eyes were a little red. Ever since I’d known her, she’d had mood swings, but they seemed to be getting worse.
“I guess it’s my turn to ask if you’re all right,” I said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Alex. Just the usual. Trust me, you don’t want to hear about my stuff.”
“Well, if you mean romance, then you’re right. But otherwise, go ahead.”
She laughed. “Romance? No, I’m just a little overextended these days. I do it to myself, always have. I’m working way too hard.”
I knew she was the new head at a private school nearby. Other than that, I really didn’t have a clue what Christine’s life looked like anymore—much less why she had been crying before I got back to the house with Alex.
“Besides,” she said, “we agreed last time I would ask about
you
. How are you doing? I know it’s hard, and I’m sorry for that, for everything that’s happened.”
I told her in the briefest possible terms about the Mary Smith case, Nana’s recent dizzy spell, and that Jannie and Damon were doing fine. I left Jamilla out of the conversation, and she didn’t ask.
“I’ve been reading about that terrible murder case in the paper,” Christine said. “I hope you’re being careful. It surprises me that a woman could be a killer.”
“I’m always careful,” I told her. There was all kinds of irony going on here. Obviously, my job stood for a lot between Christine and me, and none of it was good.
“This is all so strange, isn’t it?” she said suddenly. “Was it harder than you expected, being here today?”
I told her that seeing Alex was worth whatever it took, but that honestly, seeing her was hard, too.
“We’ve certainly had easier times than this, haven’t we?” she asked.
“Yes, just not as parents.”
She looked at me, and her dark eyes were so intelligent, as they always had been. “That’s so sad, Alex, when you put it that way.”
I shrugged, with nothing to say.
She put a tentative hand on my forearm. “I’m sorry, Alex. Really. I hope I’m not being insensitive. I don’t know what you’re feeling, but I do think I understand the position you’re in. I just—” She mustered up her next thought. “I just wonder sometimes what kind of parents we would have made. Together, I mean.”
That was it. “Christine, you either
are
being insensitive or you’re trying to tell me something.”
She sighed deeply. “I’m doing this all wrong. As usual. I wasn’t going to say anything today, but now I have. So, okay, here it is. I want Alex to have a two-parent life. I want him to know you, and believe it or not, I want you to know him. For everyone’s sake. Even mine.”
I took a step back, and her hand fell limply away. “I don’t know what to say to that, Christine. I think it’s obvious that I wanted the same thing. You’re the one who decided to move out here to Seattle.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s what I really wanted to speak with you about. I’m thinking of moving back to Virginia. I’m almost sure that’s what I’m going to do.”
My mind, finally, was completely blown.
VANCOUVER WAS ONE
of the storyteller’s favorite cities—along with London, Berlin, and Copenhagen. He flew up there on Alaska Air and arrived just in time to wait on a long line with about five hundred “visitors” from Korea and China. Vancouver was crawling with Chinese and Koreans, but that was about the only thing he didn’t like about the beautiful Canadian seaport, and it seemed a minor complaint.
He had some movie business in town that took up most of the day and also put him in a dark mood. By five or so that night he was in a wretched state of mind, and he needed to get the bottled-up anger out somehow.
Know what I need? To tell somebody what’s going on, to share.
Maybe not tell everything, but some of it—at least an idea of how incredible this whole thing was, this totally strange period of his life, this wilding, as he’d come to call it, this story.
There was this foxy red-haired producer he knew who was in Vancouver to shoot a TV movie. Maybe he should connect with her. Tracey Willett had her own wilding period in Hollywood, starting when she was eighteen and continuing into her late twenties. She’d had a kid since and had apparently cooled her jets some.
But she kept in touch with him, and that had to mean something. He’d always been able to talk to Tracey, and about almost anything.
So he called her, and sure enough, she said she’d love to have dinner and drinks with him. About an hour later, Tracey called back from the movie set. The movie shoot was running late. Not her fault, he knew. Probably some hack director’s fault. Some disorganized, arrogant, glorified art director two or three years out of film school.
So he didn’t get to see Tracey until past eleven, when she came over to his room at the Marriott. She gave him a big hug and a sloppy kiss, and she looked pretty good for having worked all day. “I missed you, sweetcakes. I missed you so much. Where have you
been?
You look great by the way. So thin,
good
thin, though. The lean-and-hungry look, right? It suits you.”
He didn’t know whether Tracey was still into blow, or booze, or whatever, so he had a little of everything on hand, and that’s what they did—just about everything. He knew right away she wanted to fool around, because she told him she was horny for one of the stunt men on the movie and because of the way she sat on the couch, legs set apart, looking him up and down with those bedroom eyes of hers, hungry eyes, just as he remembered. Finally, Tracey pulled up her top and said, “Well?”
So he took her to bed, where she complimented his new lean body again. Tracey did a little more coke; then she took off her blouse to let him admire her tits some more. He remembered the drill with Tracey—you had to talk about how sexy she was and touch her everywhere for about twenty minutes, then at least thirty minutes of very energetic humping because Tracey couldn’t have an orgasm to save her life, and was always getting
so close,
but never quite there, so keep going,
harder, faster, harder, faster, oh baby, baby, baby
. And when he came inside her, she seemed to like it, and she held him close as if they were a couple again, even though they had never really been a couple.
Once the sexual preliminaries were out of the way, it was his turn to really get off. They were out on his terrace overlooking the city, and Tracey had her head on his shoulder. Very romantic and cute, in a pathetic sort of way, like going on a date with Meg Ryan, or Daryl Hannah maybe.
“I want to tell you a little about what I’ve been up to,” he finally said. Until then, everything had been about her.
“I want to hear all about it, sweetie. Only I can’t leave the kid too late back at my hotel. The nanny threatens to quit.”
Now that he remembered, Tracey was kind of a selfish bitch most of the time.
“Does anybody know about the two of us tonight?” he asked.
“No. Duh. So what are you up to? Something big, of course. You’re due.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of a mystery thing. It’s big, all right. Really different though. Nothing anything like it before. I’m writing the story myself. The story of stories.”
“Wow, that’s great. You’re writing it yourself, huh?”
“Yeah. You know those murders in L.A.? Mary Smith?”
She knew a little but not everything, since she’d been up in Vancouver for four weeks, so he quickly filled her in.
“You bought the rights? Wow! That’s great. And what, you want
me
to produce?”
He shook his head in disbelief.
“From
who,
Tracey? Who would I buy the rights from?”
“Oh, right. Well, so what’s the deal then?”
“So I can talk to you? Really talk?”
“Of course you can talk to me. Tell me your big idea, your story. I love thrillers.”
This is it. Go or no-go? What is it going to be?
“I planned those murders, Tracey. I’m Mary.” Wow. It was out. Just like that. I’m Mary. Holy shit!
She looked at him real funny, funny peculiar, and suddenly he knew this had been a very bad idea, and old Tracey wasn’t the crazy one—
he was.
He’d just blown his whole deal. And for what? To let off a little steam with an old girlfriend? To vent? Confess?
She was staring at him as if he had two heads, at least that many. “Come again? What are you saying?”
He laughed, faked it the best he could, anyway.
“It’s a
joke,
Trace. We’re high; I made a joke. Hey, let me give you a ride home. You’ve got the kid at your hotel, the nanny and whatever. I hear you. And you’re a good mommy, right?”